Pet foods are generally manufactured and available in dry, moist and semi-moist formulations. While flavorings and aroma modifiers are used to improve palatability, wet pet foods often suffer from lack of appeal to consumers. Other disadvantages of the current components of wet pet foods include undesirable color, unpleasant odor and sometimes hard cores that do not appear to be real meat products.
Several attempts to produce a reconstituted meat product having the qualities of a piece of primal meat made by bonding together small meat pieces that would appeal to a pet and a consumer have been attempted. One such example attempts to mimic longitudinally extending muscle fibers found in primal meat, it has been proposed in the past to bond and to orient the fibers of reconstituted meat to mimic that of primal meat. Another example attempts a process and device for bonding meat or the like in a rotating drum with a horizontal axis.
A variety of attempts for producing an ergonomically improved pet food product have been undertaken. One such example, a meat product is formed by bonding the meat pieces in elongate form and arranging the meat pieces in a substantially helical array to mimic meat fibers.
While much effort has been made to produce an appealing meat product that are attractive and easy to access and manage by a pet, the need still remains for a pet food product that shows the coherence exhibited by natural meat products while still maintaining appeal to a consumer and ease of access for a pet.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a pet food product that is a desirable appearance to a consumer and easy to access and manage by a pet. This pet food product allows for a product that is attractive in appearance, provides improved texture, conceals odor and forms an ergonomically improved pet food product.